


Soon We'll Be Found

by RottenHarlot



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ex-military Daryl, Explicit Language, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Slow Build, Small military references, briefly touches on ptsd, mention of war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:16:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RottenHarlot/pseuds/RottenHarlot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He’s a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, and for the first time since he touched down in this hellhole, he feels unbridled terror. Surely they’ve locked him in here because they’ve figured out his secret."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soon We'll Be Found

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is my first fanfic in a couple of years, so I apologize in advance if I come off as a little rusty. :) Also first time AO3 poster, as you can tell by my effed up tags (hopefully didn't screw it up too much!). This is my first foray into The Walking Dead fandom and I'm also super nervous! Anyway hello all! Now down to business.
> 
> The beginning of this is set in 2003 (making Daryl 28-29 at the start of the ZA in this work), both the 38th and 15th Infantry were active and participated in the operations in Iraq at this time. Both Infantry's are the division and not the regiment. I couldn't find much information on the discharge details of DADT, so I apologize for the inconsistencies. Andrea is shaping up to be sort of a major player in later chapters, and I am borrowing a bit of her story from the comics. I think that's all for now. Onto the prologue! :)

           The sun is just beginning to set against the horizon when Daryl finally makes it back to base camp. It lightly decorates the sand in an orange glow, gently bidding the day adieu by giving the Earth one long, last kiss before it retires from the Middle East. There is nothing surrounding the camp as far as the eye can see aside from the small mountains clustered together in the West; they’re quite a few kilometers away from any cities.

            His feet kick up the dust of the Iraqi desert as he trudges back towards the barracks. The whites of his eyes go red around sapphire in irritation. He can feel the prickling sting of tears; his tear ducts trying to force moisture out to combat the dry dust. He blinks them away. There’s a sharp pang in the back of his throat. It aches something fierce. He’s been out far too long with too little water. Of course supplies wouldn’t have been stretched so thin if their group hadn’t received shitty intelligence. A simple recon mission had turned into a five day standoff in Baghdad. Extremists had managed to get the jump on their small team and tried to wait them out in the semblance of a siege. The team kept a level head and waited for their opening. They were able to take out the small nest of insurgents without any casualties on their side. A small relief to Daryl, he has enough deaths burned into his retinas.

            Daryl’s shoulders are stiff and the weight of the gun is an unwelcome pressure against his torso. He maneuvers his left shoulder up to rub some dirt from his eyes. Fucking Christ, all he wants is to scrub this place from his skin and sleep for a year. But it’s better than being stuck in Georgia with his old man, he reckons. He’s almost made it to his quarters when his lieutenant stops him. The man’s face is worn and haggard, but his mouth is set in a firm line. The words “important” and “general” spill from his lips in a tangled rush.

            Daryl is dead on his feet, the exhaustion having made itself a home in his bones over the past few days. His feet twinge in outrage and his body sways with the breeze passing by. Still, he nods, shucking his assault rifle back onto his shoulder. He can’t disobey orders.

                                                             

 

            They shove him into a small windowless room without a word, the door clicking shut softly behind him. From floor to ceiling, it’s covered in concrete. In the center of the room is a dilapidated set of wooden table and chairs. Spots on the table are puffed up and beginning to chip, hinting of age and water damage. Daryl casts a cursory look around the room before sitting down. His stomach does uneasy flips as he waits.

            He’s a few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, and for the first time since he touched down in this hellhole, he feels unbridled terror. Surely they’ve locked him in here because they’ve figured out his secret.

            He’d been sixteen when he met Randy; a guy with a knack for falsified documents and helping people disappear. Daryl had come to him, begging for documents good enough to get him into the army. Randy had snorted like it was easy. It was. Two days later, Daryl had his hands on certificates so he real, _he_ almost believed he was nineteen. He enlisted that day, without so much as a fuck you to his father.

            His fingers drum rapidly on the table in anticipation. He had always feared being caught in his lie, but after two years he’d gotten comfortable in the fact that maybe, he never would. The boy had begun to think that he was here until they shipped him back to the States in a pine box. He’d seen too much death to think that he’d last until the end of his enlistment, and that was just fine with him. At least he’d go down in a blaze of sacrifice instead of at the hands of his drunken father.

            This kind of offense was serious. Daryl doesn’t know the charges they’ll stick him with, but he knows perjury and discharge will be among them. It won’t matter that Daryl is one of the best soldiers the 38th Infantry has seen in recent years. The amount of lives he’s saved in his years of service wouldn’t matter. The couple medals he’d managed to scrape up during his tour would be stripped from him and tossed into the garbage. Worst of all, they would know he was a minor. He would be sent back to live with his father. Daryl thinks that is worse than anything the Army or the government could do to him.

            The door slams against the wall behind him sharply. He has to steady himself to avoid flinching. See the Army didn’t much care that he fears loud noises and emotional outbursts, simply as long as he didn’t show it.

            A man he’s seen only flashes of marches into the room. His uniform is of a different cut and color than his own, decorated with a plethora of shiny medals that puts his two to shame. He’s mostly bald, patches of white dusting the dome of his head in sparse patterns. There are prominent wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead.

            He stops across from Daryl, leaning across the back of the chair easily, as if he’s got all the time in the world. Daryl reacts on instinct, shooting up so fast his chair wobbles back a few inches. His hand is shaking as it flies to his forehead to salute his higher-up. A wobbly ‘sir’ makes it past his tightly drawn lips.

            The general chuckles, shaking his head. There’s no mirth in his voice. “Son, no need for formalities, I’m afraid. Please take a seat.” He says, motioning to Daryl’s recently vacated seat.

            Daryl’s throat dries up faster than Sweetwater creek in the summer time. He nods.

            The chair is hard and unwelcoming under his body. He resists the urge to fidget under his superior’s gaze. His hands fist themselves in the loose fabric of his uniform, preventing his hands from straying to his lips. A nervous habit not even boot camp seemed to be able to break him of.

            “Dixon. You’ve been an invaluable member to this company during your service. You’re a very loyal and determined young man.” The general smiles, a twinge of sadness dancing along the edges. Daryl knows the other shoe is about to drop. His superior leans forward on his forearms with a sigh before continuing.

            “An excellent marksmen as well. Hell, Edwards and at least fifteen others would be long dead if it wasn’t for you. However I’m afraid some recent information has been brought to light.”

            The younger man steadies himself.

           “An anonymous tip came across the wire a couple of days ago, bringing some of your more…eccentric qualities to light. It doesn’t make you any less of a man or a soldier in my book. But the law is the law, and this tipster already let the higher-ups in on it too.” He spits the last sentence out, as if the words taste foul on his tongue.

           Daryl’s mind begins to race. He hasn’t told anyone his secret! How did this anonymous fucker from ‘across the wire’ know anything? He didn’t keep anything from his past on him that would suggest his true age. And he’d more than held his own on the few occasions he went out drinking with the other guys in the Infantry. His daddy put him on his whiskey regiment young, after all.

          “Unfortunately we don’t have any concrete evidence to support this tip, but Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is pretty clear. You are hereby dishonorably discharged from the United States military effective immediately. A hearing will be set up for you, unless of course you’d like to take your punishment as it stands.”

           There it is. Wait…What?

          “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Sir, are yah tellin’ me, ’m gay?!” Daryl sputters in disbelief.

           The general looks shocked for a brief moment.

          “Yes, the tip came in from the 15th Infantry. Something about you making a pass at one of theirs. I can’t disclose the names of course, but that’s the information we’ve been given.” The other man says, regarding Daryl with a curious stare.

          Daryl’s rage boils hot and bright under his skin. His whole body feels tight and the veins in his neck pulse rapidly. The boy had been so careful with his actions and words, he never thought his sexuality, or lack thereof, would be what knocked the legs out from underneath his carefully constructed lie. If he’d so much as breathed a word about how much he “loves women” during the rest of the group’s rants about missing pussy, he might not be in this situation.

          He resists the urge to take his frustrations out on the general in front of him, though he briefly entertains the feeling of his face buckling under his fist. Someone in another unit was trying to get him discharged? And from the 15th, no less. That’s –

         And then it clicks into place. The 15th is Merle’s unit.

         He’d never breathed a word of enlisting to his brother. He wasn’t stupid. Daryl knew Merle would be far from approving because under his Southern bluster, he was fool enough to think he’d protected his baby brother from their big, bad daddy. Merle thinks he took all the beatings their father could muster. And when he was old enough to bail and couldn’t take it no more, he bolted and ran to the only place that would willingly take him in. And his older brother had always been a problem child, he was more in his element in the middle of a rich man’s war than anywhere else.

        Merle must have found out about Daryl joining up. Maybe from word of mouth or from their father. Being discharged under DADT was the quickest and cleanest way for Merle to get him out of the frying pan and back home, where Merle thought he would be safer. Daryl figures he must’ve made up some pretty good bullshit and had one of his dumbass buddies call it in to Daryl’s unit.

       He thinks about fighting it, the quick fire retort burning hot and heavy on his tongue. But he quickly weighs his options. If he fought this, Merle could blab his secret. His brother wasn’t a snitch by any means, but if he thought it’d keep Daryl safe, he’d have no qualms about it. And a trial would mean a thorough background check. At the time he’d enlisted, the military was basically taking anyone and everyone in with a simple, rudimentary look into their records. Randy was good, but he wasn’t _that_ good. They would be able to spot his falsified documents a mile off like it were painted red. Being discharged quietly through DADT was better than being slapped with perjury, fraud and whatever else they could get to stick.

      Daryl bows his head and nods in agreement.

 

 

     And that’s how he finds himself, plane touching down in Atlanta. All he’s got is a knapsack crammed with a few clothes, toiletries, an extra pair of boots, and the cash he’d managed to save during his enlistment. He sighs, low and heavy and waits for everyone else to exit the plane. He doesn’t have a lot left to his namesake. All of his shit is stashed at his dad’s, provided the old fuck hadn’t thrown his things out. He’d kept his prized possessions stashed under the floor boards; Daryl seriously doubts that his father could sober up long enough to pry them up. So looks like he’ll be makin’ a pit stop to daddy dearest before taking off to hunker down and figure out his next move. Maybe he’ll steal Merle’s precious Triumph as penance.

     His face breaks out into a shit eating grin at the thought.


End file.
